Eleusinian Mysteries, sacred
rituals that were the most important of ancient Greek religious festivals.
The people of the town of Eleusis observed the mysteries, which were later
adopted by the city of Athens as an official festival. The ceremonies included
a priest's address to the mystoe, the initiation candidates; a cleansing
in the sea; a sacrificial rite; and a procession from Athens to Eleusis,
where the initiation occurred in secret ceremonies. The tale of the search
of Demeter through the underworld
for her daughter Persephone was probably reenacted at the initiation. It
was related to the seeking after immortality
and happiness in a future world, which was the presumed purpose of the
ceremonies. The Eleusinian mysteries were probably celebrated until the
4th century AD, when Eleusis was destroyed.

Oscar
Janiger envisions a place for LSD
in our culture. He would like to see
studies of LSD and other psychedelics "become fair-minded
and at parity with other kinds of research," and the fruits of suchresearch
applied to "acceptable social and medical uses." He cites
the Eleusinian Mysteries of ancient Greece as a model for LSD's
potential place in our own society. For nearly 2,000 years, the Greeks
participated in an annual ritual in the city of Eleusis, 22
kilometers west of Athens. In the secret ceremony, participants from
all walks of life (Plato and Aristophanes, as well as slaves) imbibed a
sacred drink called "kykeon" and then proceeded to experience
what one ancient author described as "ineffable visions" that were
"new, astonishing, inaccessible to rational cognition." Says Janiger,
"Those who underwent the mysteries came out at the other side, the sages
tell us, as changed people who saw the world differently." In short, the
Golden Age of Greece may have also been a very psychedelic
age.

Fortunately, it doesn't
take that many people to move the consciousness of society to a higher
plane. In ancient Greece, a mere 15% of the free citizens were participants
in the mysterious rites of Eleusis, which provided the cognitive foundation
of their society. I have read estimates that 80 million Americans
have used substances our current power structure has declared to be illegal.
Although not all of these substances have psychedelic properties, it would
be an interesting historical coincidence if one-half of these illegal substance
users have used a psychedelic substance at least once. If that is the case,
then approximately 15% of the U.S. population have now experienced a taste
of the rites of Eleusis, for they have ventured into the marvelous realm
of entheospace
at least one time. What is needed is for the more advanced explorers of
entheospace, the psychedelic thinkers, to contact
those who were once familiar with this territory and encourage them to
return to the world of psychedelic thinking and help us begin the difficult
work of saving the biosphere and all the life it sustains.

The characteristic property
of hallucinogens,
to suspend
the boundaries between the experiencing self and the outer world in
an ecstatic,
emotional experience, makes it possible with their help, and after suitable
internal and external preparation, as it was accomplished in a perfect
way at Eleusis, to evoke a mystical experience according to plan, so to
speak.

Meditation is a preparation
for the same goal that was aspired to and was attained in the Eleusinian
Mysteries. Accordingly it seems feasible that in the future, with
the help of LSD,
the mystical vision, crowning meditation, could be made accessible to an
increasing number of practitioners of meditation.

I see the true importance
of LSD in the possibitity of providing material aid to meditation aimed
at the mystical experience of a deeper, comprehensive reality.
Such a use accords entirely with the essence and working character of LSD
as a sacred drug.